“Robert,” Genevieve said, bizarrely cheerful. “You’re here. Please don’t be angry. I think it will be wonderful to have Leslie with us.”
Leslie shook her head, stunned, thinking as fast as she could, playing for time. Playing for her life. “Robert…think about what you’re doing. I think you wanted to be found. You set Joe up with Eileen Brideswell. You’re a good man. You don’t want to hurt me.”
His gun was drawn. She knew that he had killed before. She swallowed, suddenly realizing what the pile on the far side of the room was. One or more of the other girls. He had left their bodies here with Genevieve so she would know her inevitable fate. So she would behave. So he could bend her to his will.
“Leslie, why couldn’t you have died in that blast? Then…you could have stayed away, but you didn’t. Ask Genevieve—there’s only one way to handle women. She had such a fit about those hookers going missing. She was going to do something. So she had to come here. She’s been a delight, I have to say. But then, she wants to live.”
“Leslie wants to live, too,” Genevieve said.
“Robert,” Leslie said, a shocked whisper of disbelief. “I just can’t believe it’s you.”
“Who else?” he asked lightly. “Who else had access to sites and houses and cars, and who else could go all over the city, doing as he pleased? These tunnels are quite something, you know. You can get right into Hastings House. Of course, you figured that out, didn’t you, Leslie? But did you know there’s an entrance right into that crypt you discovered? I would have taken care of things the morning you were down there alone, but then Laymon had to show up before I could drag you away. No one would have known. But he showed up and I had to leave in a hurry. You’re remarkably hard to kill, young lady. Not even a push onto the subway tracks could do it. You’ve got to understand. I never wanted to hurt you. But you know way too much. I don’t know how you know, you just do. You would have discovered me eventually. You have some kind of a touch or a sight, and it got even stronger after you survived the explosion. A shame, that. Four people dead, but I missed the one I meant to kill. I’m really sorry, Leslie,” he said softly.
She saw that his fingers were twitching on his gun.
He was going to shoot her. Then and there.
“Stop!” a voice roared. She heard running footsteps.
Joe!
Robert turned and fired into the tunnel, but his arms jerked and the shot went wild. It looked as if he was fighting with himself—or an invisible opponent. Despite that, he kept pulling the trigger.
Again and again.
The blasts were horrendously loud in the confined space, and he was cursing and screaming even as he kept firing, the shots still going wild.
Suddenly he was slammed up against the door, his mouth an O of horror, but he wouldn’t let go of the gun.
Matt! Leslie thought joyously as Robert twisted, struggling to aim his gun up the tunnel.
Suddenly Joe loomed out of the darkness, and it looked as if Robert couldn’t possibly miss him. “No!” Leslie shouted.
She jumped on Robert Adair’s back. Genevieve shouted, desperately trying her best to distract him. A shot rang out from the tunnel, and Robert was spun around by the force of it, staring straight at the two of them.
He smiled.
Leslie wondered why.
Then she knew.
He fired one last time, even as he died himself.
“No!”
She heard Joe scream out the single word. But she was falling. Genevieve tried to catch her as she fell, but the other woman had no strength. Leslie could only imagine what she had endured over the past weeks. They fell to the floor together as Joe raced toward them.
But she didn’t see Joe.
She saw Matt.
He was down on his knees beside her, wrapping her in his arms.
There were tears in his eyes. “No, Leslie, no…”
“Leslie!” Dimly, she heard Joe shouting. He was desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood coming from her chest.
“Leslie, hang on, hang on….”
She was dimly aware that the tunnels were alive with footsteps.
She smiled. She’d been blessed with good friends.
“Leslie,” Matt whispered, cradling her. “Fight. Fight.”
She couldn’t fight. And she knew it. She reached for Matt, saw his eyes, the tears. The love.
“Some things,” she whispered, “are meant to be.”
EPILOGUE